


Footsteps

by bellefire



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Dark Humor, Depression, Drinking, Homelessness, M/M, Murder, Recovery, Slow Burn, Violence, and also yes there is a dog, animal abuse briefly, bucky barnes being both aloof af and polite af, bucky loves steve, crappy nutrition, he doesn’t really want to talk about it, is IN love with steve, life on the run, sort of canon compliant, the backpack of sadness, the kindness of strangers, this going to get long kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 18:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6917815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellefire/pseuds/bellefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how a dog, modern-day coffee miracles, and three Romanian grandmas save the soul of James Buchanan Barnes.  Or what the hell happened to Bucky before the events of Captain America: Civil War from the streets of New York to the streets of Bucharest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Footsteps

 

**Chapter 1**

**“** _No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become.  No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell.  There are no maps of the change.  You just come out the other side._

_Or you don’t._ **”**

-Stephen King

                A ghost slips through an ally in East Brooklyn, the ghost is not deterred by the freezing chill in the air or the similar spirits hunched in corners covered in cardboard boxes and stuffed with newspaper.  He keeps his basic black ball cap pulled down low over his face as to not invite any unwanted eye contact with the locals—primarily young bloodthirsty men who would sooner shoot you for a ten dollar bill than let you walk by unmolested.  The ghost is good at not being seen, even in a neighborhood always as “on” as Brownsville.  He looks just like any other homeless vet wandering the streets at night trying not to freeze to death.  The ghost smirks unhappily, struck by the irony.  Freezing wasn’t so bad.  Thawing hurt worse.

An Oldsmobile thumping an unrecognizable bass cuts the ghost off when he crosses the street, narrowly missing the ghost by an inch.  The car doesn’t stop and the ghost doesn’t care, too much in his own head.  Situational awareness suffers when every fucking little thing gives him a flashback accompanied by a searing headache and the lingering taste of blood in the back of his dry throat.  On the other side of the street the ghost rests his head against the outer brick wall of the convenience store there.  It’s colder than the air, the little cold shock helps with the headache somewhat.  He doesn’t notice the graffiti there until he lifts his head up.  Not graffiti, a mural.  Rising above him is Tony Stark painted-up like a Catholic saint surrounded by weapons and swirling color, the figure dons the Iron Man suit but the face is Stark’s wearing aviator sunglasses, everything about him screams money.  They like Stark here, or maybe what they know of him through the news.  “Life goals” of weapons dealing, expensive booze, and sleeping with supermodels for every gang leader from Brooklyn to the Bay.  The superhero bit just looked like a side job to them.  The ghost frowns, stupid fucking kids.  They didn’t know shit.

The ghost’s left arm twitches and his attention is pulled away from the spray-painted mural, he needed a screwdriver, a small one.  Today that was his mission.  Mandatory maintenance was overdue.  He shouldn’t have torn those trackers out so carelessly after…

After.

 Since then he’d been getting uncomfortable little feedback shocks down his shoulder blade into his spine.  Fucking irritating is what it was.  The ghost purposefully lets his footfalls be heavy, makes noise when he normally wouldn’t and enters the store.  There are two doors, one is basically a steel gate that makes the ghost uncomfortable over the second glass one.  A tiny Filipino man sits on a stool behind the cash register, close to one of his arms is a baseball bat.  The man doesn’t look up which was just a well.  The ghost zeros in on the target, a screwdriver made for fixing reading glasses hanging on a haphazard display by some cheap snack foods.  He grabs it and after a second of internal debate grabs a bag of beef jerky too.

The man behind the counter scans the items also without looking up, when he finally does to give him the price his eyes widen just a fraction taking in the ghost’s tall figure draped in a long black coat, dirty jeans, and hat covering long brown hair.  Paying customers probably usually didn’t look like him.

“5.34,” The man says after a blink.

The ghost pulls out a clip of crisp bills, he counts out six dollars with overly gentle leather-gloved hands, places the cash on the counter and leaves with his meager purchase.  Doesn’t even say “keep the change.”  A voice in his head drawls: what kind of self-respecting assassin jingle-jangled for Christ’s sake?  It’s his own voice.  The ghost has come to realize he’s something of a wise-ass, just stopping half the sarcastic shit that wants to come out of his mouth on a day to day basis is a job.  Walking around with change clanging around in his pocket _is_ asking for trouble though. 

The thing about trouble, it always comes around.  Whether he went asking or not.

The ghost is heading back to homebase (a huge unused drainage pipe hovering over the Hudson that would remain unused until the Spring) for the arm’s needed repairs when he hears it.  He tries to ignore the sounds because the world was pain and what the hell could someone so adept at causing pain hope to do about that much poison infecting everything?  The sounds are whimpers, yips of agony and fear, surrounded by sneering voices dripping with violence.  The ghost nears another group of undeveloped housing complexes and the sounds grow louder, he sighs but doesn’t change course.  He sees no one but an older kid, brown-skinned, jersey, clean white shoes, no weapon, perched on the steps in front of one of the buildings.  The kid’s fists are balled-up, he’s angry, looking across the street at something the ghost can’t see yet.

The ghost should take an alternate route.  He keeps moving forward and about the time the kid notices him the ghost finds the source of the achingly familiar noises.  A dog, a Rottweiler missing an eye and covered in a patchwork of scars, cowers between two buildings surrounded by alcohol-soured men.  The men are kicking so hard dust and gravel are spit everywhere at each swing.  One has a piece of pipe, he swings it and misses hitting a nearby dumpster with a piercing clang.  Still the dog doesn’t try to fight back.  Conditioning, the ghost recognizes immediately.  The dog is big but mostly starved, barbed wire is wrapped around its neck in lieu of a collar.  With a sudden sickening lurch in his stomach, the ghost remembers he knows what barbed wire wrapped around his neck feels like.  He knows what being able to kill his captors feels like but never rising a hand because he couldn’t, he couldn’t, Hydra was in his veins and he _couldn’t_.

The quick turn on his heels happened without a thought.  The ghost’s footfalls were silent, he bleeds into the natural shadows afforded by the night with inhuman speed.

The one with the pipe rasps, “We should just kill it already, the fucking thing is useless in the fights.”  There’s a murmur of bored agreement among them and the pipe is raised high over the dog’s bowed head except it doesn’t hit the dog.  

The pipe makes an odd _thunk_ sound against the ghost’s left arm.  His sudden appearance makes the men flinch back in shock.  The ghost thinks he should give them the chance to run, he wasn’t supposed to be drawing attention to himself after all.  The dog makes a helpless noise behind him then the ghost thinks, _fuck that_.  He snatches the pipe away, flips it around and hits the man’s arm hard enough for the bone to shatter in one fluid movement.  The man screams but he’s soon drowned out by loud music coming from the kid and his stereo on the steps across the street.

[ _Brooklyn, Brooklyn_ , _Brooklyn, Brooklyn, we go hard…we go hard_ …]

The ghost grabs the nearest guy avoiding a couple of sloppy punches from the others and smashes his face into the brick wall behind him leaving a streak of bright red blood as he slides to the ground, wailing.

[ _This is black hoodie rap, there’s no fear in my eyes where they’re lookin’ at. Betta look a’ map.  Besides me not like ta eye-fight, me not tink  such a ting is worth a man’s life_ …]

The remaining men get their shit together replacing their shock with rage.  One starts to roar, “You fuckin’ piece of—”  the ghost hits him square in the chest and the asshole gasps, inside of him his ribs creak and he narrowly avoids a punctured lung.  The ghost could have punched right through him, so really, he was lucky.  Luck has a warped perspective. 

[ _But if a man tests my style, I promise he won’t like my reply.  Boom, bye, bye_ …”]

Two guys remain, the biggest one comes at the ghost and then swears taking a few hesitant steps backwards ready to run away.  The ghost picks up an empty whiskey bottle, gets the vague impression he used to be pretty damned good at baseball and throws it at the more cowardly of the two.  Glass shatters on the guy’s head and he goes down like a sack of potatoes.  The ghost still has the pipe so he shoves that into the last man barreling after him.  Bigger they are, the louder they scream.  The pipe sticks out of the goon’s side, it missed any major organs but because it was a _pipe_ he was losing a lot of blood.  The ghost didn’t give one fuck.

[ _Like Buju, I’m crucial.  I’m a Brooklyn boy—I may take some getting’ used to_.]

Hostiles eliminated.

The ghost looks down at the dog and the dog looks up, one eye big and brown and sad.  They just stare at each other for a moment neither knowing what the other was supposed to do.  Vaguely the ghost is aware the music fades as the enemy combatants pass out from pain, blood loss, or just quiet down because they don’t want to die.  The ghost goes down to one knee and says in a voice that sounds like he’d been gargling glass, “Don’t move.”

Slowly he reaches for the barbed wire around the dog’s neck and pulls it carefully free.  Every time the dog flinches the ghosts whispers he’s sorry but doesn’t stop until the wretched thing is no longer digging into the skin of the dog’s neck.  He throws the metal wire on the man with the broken arm.  He stands intending to walk away but the dog starts to follow.  That is a problem.  The ghost stops, the dogs stops, the kid is still watching intently from his steps.  When the dog moved its ribs showed more prominently so the ghost reaches for the jerky he’d bought and dumps the entire packet on the ground hoping that would get the dog to stay put.  To reinforce his point the ghost says, “Stay.”

The dogs blinks its one eye and starts devouring the dried meat, the ghost swiftly crosses the street again feeling weirdly like he’s buzzing all over.  No cops were coming, no one had called, thanks to the kid who was now standing up watching him come closer.  Not that they would have been there to reasonably see what happened anyway.  That at least hadn’t changed.  Neighborhoods like these weren’t priorities even though the crime rate there was higher than the Empire State Building.  Fear of the gangs maybe, the ghost figured it was more like it was too much of an inconvenience. A “watcha gonna do?” mentality that had helped factions like Hydra take power in the first place.  Evil triumphs when blah fucking blah.

“Hey!  Hey, man!”  The kid hollers in a lightly accented voice as the ghost drifts by.  When the kid doesn’t get a response he practically screams, “Hey!  Creepy loco fucker!”  Which has the ghost stop in his tracks and turn, very slowly, around.  The kid doesn’t look scared at all, he’s running up to him like the ghost doesn’t have blood splatter on his face.  The dog is behind the kid a few yards off apparently trying to follow the ghost from a distance.  Again: that’s a problem.

The kid’s eyes are very dark up close and despite his choice of words to get his attention he’s upbeat, “Are those guys dead back there?”

Pausing the ghost considers that, “No.”  His scratchy tone implied that would likely change.  Currently those men were all still alive.  If they didn’t get any help soon for a couple of them that would not stay the case.  Acceptable causalities.

“Yeah, well, they deserved what you gave ‘em.”  The kid says sternly.  Physically he’s the complete opposite of the person the kid reminds the ghost of.  Dark skin instead of pale, healthy rather than frail, but it’s the same fire.

The ghost doesn’t have a response to that and figures the conversation, if that’s what you could call it, was done.  He starts moving away again but the kids keeps on, “Yo, is that your dog?”

The ghost shakes his head wearily.  His metal arm was starting to hurt more, beating some thugs up in an alley didn’t do him any favors.

“Well, it looks like it is now.”  The kid frowns thoughtfully then says, “Wait here, don’t fucking go anywhere yet.”  He runs back to his steps and goes inside.

For some reason the ghost stays rooted to the ground.  He glares at the dog down the sidewalk blaming it for making him go so far off mission parameters.  Everything went FUBAR when he went off mission parameters.  Seventy fucking years and he’d thought he would’ve learned that by now.  Then again it took a lot of work to drill anything into his thick skull, years of torture, hypnosis, and electroshock with a nice compound of mixed chemicals injected right into his spinal cord in fact.  The ghost grins to himself, he had a feeling his sense of humor would be lost on a lot of people.

Moments later the kid comes running out of the apartment building with a plastic bag in hand.  He tosses the bag to the ghost without warning saying, “Here.”

The ghost raises an eyebrow.

“It’s just some dog food and some water, man, you don’t have to do anything for it.  Not everyone around here is an asshole.”

                The ghost doesn’t say anything more, he grips the bag tightly and continues on his way.

                The kid yells as he’s walking away, “Name’s Alvaro, see you around _lobo_!  Cuz you’re like the big bad wolf, get it!?”

                A half-hearted wave is all the kid gets in response before the ghost melts into the night.  It’s quite the trek to homebase in the cold and at night, the dog never wavers.  Whenever the ghost stops the dog stops never getting any closer than ten feet and just as quickly follows when the ghost keeps moving.  The ghost debates dumping the food out on the ground like before and making a break for it but the dog is starving and too much too fast would kill it.  Not that it was his responsibility what happened to the damned dog just because he’d…one sad brown eye stares at him while they’ve stopped at a cross walk in a slightly better area, God-fucking-damnit.  His programming didn’t cover this situation.  His programming was shot to shit anyway.

                “C’mon on then, comrade.”  The ghost beckons somewhat annoyed with an outstretched hand so they could cross the street together.  Timidly the dog follows the order though its nub of a tail wags happily. 

                The people still out (because New York never sleeps) give the dark figure and his terrifying dog a wide berth, well, a wider than usual berth.  The ghost could summon a lot of personal space all on his own the additional room is nice though.  Unfortunately there’s some extra unwanted attention that goes with that and the ghost has to quell the urge to just pick up the dog and _run_.  Negative, that would only garner more attention.  He picks up the pace and only glances down once to make sure the dog is keeping up, it is.

                The ghost does eventually have to pick the dog up, while it isn’t at all heavy and wouldn’t be heavy to him even if it was healthy it’s still a big dog—bulky and all of that nervous canine has to go under one arm for the ghost to climb down a rebar ladder directly next to  the drain pipe overhanging the cold rushing water of the Hudson.  The dog is not pleased at the situation.  The ghost puts one foot into the mammoth opening of the pipe and swings them both into it.  Inside the wind isn’t biting and there are a few creature comforts.  One sleeping bag.  A few books laid out neatly, mostly recent world history, and one Asimov with its frayed pages being held flat by a massive bottle of cheap vodka.  A bug-out bag he’d hidden when he was working as the Winter Soldier containing everything from emergency ration blocks to extra ammo, a contingency if a mission went wrong and he couldn’t immediately return to Hydra.  His programming screamed at him every single day to return, because despite S.H.I.E.L.D. being taken down, he would bet temporarily, there would always be a Hydra.  Cut off one head…  There had been a moment right after he went on the run where the idea of killing every single one of those Hydra fuckers he could was all he wanted to do, but his rage waned before his bone-deep exhaustion.  Not exhaustion from the running, he could go further, longer, whatever it took to stay free, but he hadn’t slept in over seventy years.  He would always be angry but he wasn’t ready to use that anger just yet, he just wanted to sleep, dream again, and wake up without the burn of frost on his lungs.  Cryo wasn’t sleep, it was a pause button, short little trips to hell and back for the dead man walking.  Which was fine for Hydra, he was usually pissed when came out of cryo and he generally took it out on whatever poor asshole he was being sent to kill.  Sometimes his targets _were_ assholes, on the nights those memories came back it was easier to sleep.  Most nights sleep didn’t come so easy. 

                The ghost places the dog on the ground and it immediately skitters away.  He expects it to snuffle around his things and generally do dog-related activities, whatever the fuck those were, all it does is find a spot to sit and stays there staring at the ghost.  Which was starting to be a little disconcerting, if there wasn’t  dried blood on his face and a bag in his hand the ghost would kind of be worried he’d been hallucinating the dog this whole time.  Wouldn’t the first time his broken brain has made him see something that’s not there.  Usually it was someone in particular though.  Someone blonde and wrapped in sunlight.  The ghost grabs the bottle of vodka and collapses down on the sleeping bag eye-level to the dog.  He drains half the nearly full bottle in one-go, the dog is not impressed.  It should have been because that shit was awful.  A picture of St. Basil’s decorated the bottle prominently but below in very small letters read _made in Kentucky_.  The ghost felt personally slighted by the entire state of Kentucky.

                Anymore food seemed dangerous for the dog so the ghost puts his bottle away and digs out an empty MRE packet.  He folds it into a vague bowl shape for the dog’s water.  Just like before it takes the dog a few moments to decide if it wanted it or not but after it started lapping up the liquid it made quick work of it.  The dog is apparently female—he should probably stop referring to her as an it.  He knew how…unpleasant that was.  Could be different for dogs though, for some reason he doubted that.

                “Don’t suppose you’d tell me your name, comrade?”  The scratchy quality of his own voice grated on him, but it was easier now to talk with just him and the dog.  The dog stares, per usual thus far, she was probably still hungry and the ghost felt bad about that but in the long run it would be better for her. 

                “Then how about Likho, you don’t get it but it’s funny I swear.”  Technically the name was a boy’s name, but it was also technically the name of a one-eyed mythical creature so it really didn’t matter.  He puts his flesh hand out for her and she immediately comes to him.  The ghost lightly rubs the top of her head and behind brown floppy ears, despite the grime on her and the scars she’s still very soft or maybe he just wasn’t used to soft things.  The weight of responsibility felt heavy in his chest, if he’d stayed in Kiev this would have never happened.  The Ukraine was nice, like Russia but with less Russia.  New York had called to him and not knowing why or what he would do he went.  Vaguely in the water color landscape of his memory he recalled going AWOL before, he gone to New York.  Hydra went into a panic until they found him at shelter for Vets weeks later not knowing who he was but knowing he was a _someone_.

                He still kept forgetting that now.  That he was a someone.

                The ghost has a name too, irrationally he wants to tell the dog, wants to say the words because they were said too long ago now and it feels like he’s losing them.  “My name is…Bucky.  I wish I never met you, Likho.” 

He’d called himself a ghost because that’s what he thought he was.  He’d read it in perfect etching on a memorial.  James Buchanan Barnes was dead.  For a while “ghost” seemed the only thing he could accept.  Now he knows that’s not the truth, not exactly.  He still believed he had died a death of sorts.  Had he clawed his way out of his coffin?  No.  He’d been left out, like meat left to spoil.  Ghosts didn’t carry the rot with them.  They didn’t feel the thickening miasma of shame every time they looked at their hands.  Maybe he’d taken to the title not because he died once but because the thought of being a ghost sounded almost comforting.  Being a ghost would be easy.  Being Bucky Barnes was so much more painful.  The dog comes in closer, a warm comforting bulk against his side.  He doesn’t think he deserves to be comforted, his throat is a little sore—the most talking he’s done in years and it’s to a damned dog.

                He lies down and repeats his name over and over to himself out loud until he falls asleep.  Just before the precipice of unconsciousness a series of number come too.  Good dreams don’t come from the numbers, the worst actually.  It’s hard, most of the time, to tell nightmare from memory.  The gho—Bucky, was beginning to feel like they were one in the same.

***

                When Bucky wakes up the next morning there’s fifty pounds of smelly dog sleeping on his chest trying to suffocate him.  Okay, not intentionally, and he can take a helluva lot more pressure than that on his ribcage but still not the best way for an assassin to wake up.  He lightly drums his fingers on Likho’s side and she’s up in an instant.  Too fast for her injuries, she yelps.  Bucky decides right then and there he was going to have to find a better place to hold-up.  Someplace warmer, cleaner, where she can have a decent place to sleep and not be disturbed.  He was kind of pissed off about it, that didn’t mean much—he was usually drifting between the poles of being pissed off and feeling absolutely nothing.  Bucky would always take the anger over the nothing.

                Breakfast is a protein bar and the rest of the vodka.  He eats without tasting and really all the vodka does is make him feel warm.  It’s nice.  Bucky makes getting more a priority right after he gives Likho more water and a third of one of the cans of dog food.  She never begs for more and that strikes a painful chord in him.  He hopes at least one of her tormentors is dead.  Not very Zen of him he knows, doesn’t care.  Bucky hadn’t been particularly gentle with any of the Hydra operatives he came across either.  While he didn’t blow through every Hydra base he knew of in the name of righteous vengeance he had went to a few for information about himself.  Bucky knew a lot already, his brain wasn’t wasting any time repairing itself without the electricity and ice to slow the process, but there where things done to him he wouldn’t ever remember.  The science behind it all.  Once upon time he remembered loving science and technology, enamored with all things about the future.  He had to say, so far, the future fucking sucked.

                Above them the concrete was rumbling, amplified by the pipe and Bucky’s serum enhanced senses.  A car, he realizes, a door opens and music pours out briefly _[…ou were always on my miiind, you were always on my mind_ —], something is thrown over into the water landing with a _thunk_ and the car skids out.  Curious Bucky looks over to catch a glimpse of a pistol sinking into the murky river.  It’s oddly funny to him, he chuckles and the sound reverberates eerily inside the pipe.  His laugh sounds cruel.  The future was very different, but some things never changed.  Usually the worse things.

                Bucky waits what he deems is a sufficient amount of time before stuffing everything he owned into his duffle and slinging it over his shoulder, very gingerly he scoops Likho up under one arm and he carefully makes his way out into the open.  Likho sticks close to him and no one tries to tell Bucky his dog was supposed to be on a leash, he stuck to the alleys anyway.  Wandering back to the same neighborhood as last night didn’t seem wise with the bodies left lying bloody in the street.  The authorities would chock it up to gang retaliation and move on however it didn’t hurt to be careful.  He walks until he hits Hell’s Kitchen which has calmed down significantly since the 80’s but it would always have the promise of violence around the corner.  As wells as Starkbucks and liquor stores, Bucky was not ready for Starbucks yet.  Liquor was the target anyway and Likho would likely get animal control called on her within fifty feet of any coffee joint, hell, so would he. 

                He stumbles upon a tiny liquor store that looked like it sold shit cheap and didn’t bother carding customers.  Bucky drops his duffle behind a nearby dumpster and looks down at Likho, “Stay.”  He orders firmly.  Likho stares then sits with a huff.

                Bucky carefully runs his hands over her head, “Good girl.”

                A cop rolls by as Bucky turns around, the officer inside gives him a judgmental look but doesn’t stop, off to spot better people to harass.  The liquor store has bells attached the door and old linoleum floors, a no smoking sign hangs ironically above the wall of cigars and cigarettes behind the counter.  Johhny Cash croons out of the shitty store speakers.  Bucky remembers a handler who loved Cash, playing his music in the truck to and from missions.  He remembers a wide mouth and slicked-back slate grey hair, no name comes to mind but he hadn’t been cruel.  The handler was selling Hydra tech to private security firms for personal profit, Hydra found out.  Hydra always found out.  They sent the Soldier in to put him down, make it look like a suicide they said.  So the Soldier crept into his small house at night and put in Folsom Prison Blues on the handler’s vintage record player.  His handler woke up fitfully smelling like whiskey, he knew why the Soldier was there, didn’t even try to fight it.  He’d known what the Soldier was capable of first hand.

_“You’re gonna come for us all, in then end.”_   The man had said, his last words, like the Soldier was Death itself wielding a sickle.  Looking back, Bucky wonders maybe that’s what he had actually seen, too drunk to tell the difference.  Was there even a difference at the time?

 The handler, ex, closed his eyes when the Soldier pressed a gun to his temple.  A silencer prevented waking the neighbors, there was only the splat of blood on a framed  poster of the Man in Black behind the handler’s head.  The Soldier put the gun in a lifeless hand to get fingerprints on it then let it fall to the floor as if it fell from the man’s hand after the trigger was pulled.  The Soldier left him that way, he heard the record playing all the way to his extraction point _._

                Bucky swallows and forces himself forward to a shelf of clear alcohols in the far back passing a woman with glossy black hair arguing with the cashier in irritated tones.  He finds the biggest “bottle” of vodka the joint has and quickly dredges himself up to check-out standing behind the increasingly irate woman.  She’s slight in figure but the tension held in her shoulders beneath her leather jacket screams strength, the shadows on her face scream sleepless nights.

                “This isn’t a charity, Jones, your card got declined and you didn’t bring any paper, get the hell out of here maybe find a bar you haven’t been kicked out of yet.”  The cashier, and older woman with hair shorn close to her head, says with a sneer not even trying to keep her voice down.

                The counter creaks under the black-haired woman’s (Jones?) hand, Bucky can hear the press-wood groan all the way down to its base begging to splinter.  This woman was a lot more than simply “strong”, for a long moment he expected her to throw a punch and take what she wanted, she doesn’t but she doesn’t move either.  Eventually Bucky’s patience gets worn thin from being around so many people for so long and concerned about Likho left alone in an alley with a bag that included but was not limited to containing a disassembled M204 grenade launcher and a SIG-Sauer P226R.  Not wise to leave it alone for long even with a rough looking Rottweiler playing guard dog next to it.  Bucky sidles up next to the angry woman, not touching but close enough to toss in his own bottle on the counter to get rung-up.

                Getting hit wouldn’t have been a surprise but the woman relents and starts to turn out the door when for some dumb as fuck reason Bucky opens his big trap, “Wait.”

                 Slowly, eyes squinting in suspicion, Jones turns around.  Her hands curl slightly at her sides ready for a fight at all times apparently.  Bucky can respect that.  He pulls the bottle of whiskey next to his own and gruffly tells the cashier, “This one too.”

                Jones’ face twists in protest but Bucky just throws down more than enough money for both, tosses Jones her’s and grabs his own.

                “Guess chivalry ain’t dead.”  The cashier grunts surprised.

                Bucky hesitates at the door then says in a monotone voice, “No, it’s just been in the deep freeze for seventy years.”  Goddamn he was hilarious.

                Jones doesn’t look like she’s processing what he just did, he doesn’t expect a thank you, all he wants is to leave so he does.  He really needs to stop inserting himself into situations, that’s the opposite of being low-key.  He was already pressing his luck being in New York (home) at all.  Bucky wasn’t too worried, the trail he left in Europe was vast and complicated, only half of that trail was actually him looking to finding intel the other half was on purpose to get some breathing room from everyone pursuing him.  Hydra.  The government.  All the governments.  Other important and bull-headed people (person).

                Bucky almost makes it back to a patient Likho when he hears the woman chasing after him, he stays motionless when she grabs his arm, “Hey weirdo!  What the hell was that?”  She presses harder into his left arm and her eyes go wide at the unyielding metal.  Impressively she ignores it, “Listen, I don’t like owing anybody.”

                Likho looks distressed at the confrontation but stays as stock-still as Bucky, “You don’t.” He tries to move away but Jones is really fucking strong.  Possibly as strong as he was.  The plates in his arm shift with a soft whir that catches Jones’ attention, wisely she lets go.

                “Yeah, I do.  I don’t have any damn money right now…”  She regards his dirty clothes, he looks homeless and downtrodden, she also sees the dangerous aura around him.  Jones has the kind of face that looks like she wants to help and kind of looks like she hates the world and she’s perpetually torn between the two.  Bucky picks up his duffle and slings it over one shoulder, taps Likho and she stands ready to follow, intent on leaving Jones where she stands. 

                “Wait.”  Jones echoes him, she’s frustrated, “Do you need…like… a place to stay or something?”

                Bucky cocks an eyebrow because his impression of this woman had been she was a lot smarter than that.

                She rolls her eyes, “No, asshole, not _with me_.  The building I rent from.  It’s cheap, no background checks.  The landlady is flexible with…whatever the hell that thing is.” Jones glances down at Likho.

                Bucky stares at her for too long and she huffs putting her hands up, “Fine.  Whatever.” 

                Taking a breath Bucky asks, “Address?”

                Jones smugly pulls out a paper a pen like she took notes all the time, she scribbles out a street number and name then shoves it at him, “There.  Tell her Jessica sent you.”  Jones doesn’t bother with a goodbye.

                The apartment building the address leads to was, as far as apartments went, pretty shitty.  Compared to the ten foot in diameter drainpipe jutting over the chilly waters of the Hudson, maybe not so bad.  Then again there were people, historically Bucky had not been so great with people.  Large groups were fine.  Great even, he could disappear easily in the throng of a crowded busy street.  One on one?  They expected you to speak to them then, to look at them in the eye, to smile, to act like a person instead of what he was now.  Now he was the cold of the Russian winter wrapped into a human shape, his insides were made of sharp unforgiving things.  His lungs never ceased  breathing  the smoke from the barrel of a just fired gun and his brain was even more of a mess than his body.  Not to mention his manners at this point were just fuckin’ awful.

Did the building have an elevator?  There was no way in hell he was holding the elevator open for someone. 

There is an elevator.

However the building has no one drifting through its corridors, no busy people shuffling in and out of the doors.  There are quiet sounds of life behind the thin walls but otherwise the occupants valued their privacy.  Pockets of air here and there held the scent of the sour tang of meth or heady grain alcohols.  The linoleum on the floor is chipped and mismatched to the point of having no idea what the floor’s pattern was actually supposed to be.  He sort of likes it for some reason.  It’s distinctly very human. 

Likho snuffles in the dusty air and crowds into the back of Bucky’s legs, being indoors had probably used to mean something bad for her and Bucky…can understand that, so he lets her even though it makes walking somewhat awkward.  She follows him like that all the way to the door with “Superintendent” painted on it in chipped yellow and black then she sits on the floor out of the way patiently waiting for Bucky to get up the nerve to knock. 

He stands there for a solid twenty-three minutes.  As the minutes ticked by sweat gathered at his temples, he’d thought he was getting better at this shit.  Apparently not.  Likho starts to doze. He was so close to just turning around, just keep walking and walking, until his shoes fell off and the world ran out of people.  Likho snorts in her sleep startling herself awake, oh, right, the dog.  Fuckin’ dog needs to be out of the cold.  Bucky raises his hand, drops it, raises it again then it hovers over the old wood of the door long enough for his shoulder to go stiff.  Eventually the choice is taken away from him, sickly enough he can’t help but feel grateful for it.

The floor creaks and the door swings open revealing a short black woman who had to be edging seventy with iron colored hair pulled back in a tight bun and glasses thick enough to stop a bullet.  She peers down at Likho on the floor and in a smoke-cracked voice asks, “What is _that_?”

“A dog.”  Bucky answers matter of fact with maybe a defensive bite to his tone.

“If you say so.”  The woman adjusts her glasses and looks up at him her eyebrows go high, “Are you going to stand there all day, son?  Or are you gonna come on inside?”

“Jessica Jones sent me.”  Bucky blurts in lieu of answering her question.

The woman’s lips quirk in an almost smile, “Oh, is that a fact?”

Bucky doesn’t say anything else nor does he move another muscle, the woman goes back into her messy little office but leaves the door open, after a grueling internal debate the part of Bucky that cares about a fuck’n dog more than he cares about himself emerges the victor and forces his stubborn feet forward, normally silent footfalls heavy as brick against the scuffed floor.

“People call me Bibi, you can call me Ms. Bibi. Give me a minute and I’ll find you a key.”  There doesn’t seem to be much of an organization system in the office.  Bibi’s lined fingers glance over almost everything on her tiny press-wood desk until she unearths, seemingly by chance, a keyring with a plastic tag tied to it with a piece of worn string.  The label reads, Rm 0 B.    Which, in fact, does not sound like a room number.

Bibi holds out the key to him and Bucky stares.  Carefully he reaches out and takes it, giving the old lady plenty of time to change her mind.

“There you are.”  Bibi says satisfied, she adjusts her glasses when they start to slip down  her face then shuffles back to her desk, “Rent’s due on the 3rd of every month.  In cash, I can get you in for the remainder of this month for fifty but every month after it will be five-hundred.  You can’t pay you let me know.  The basement floor is all yours, the access door is on the Southside of the building.  If something breaks you fix it yourself.  If I tell you to leave you leave.  Any questions?”

Bucky swallows then shakes his head.  This wasn’t the negotiation he’d been expecting.

“Good.  I hate questions.  Now off with you, boy, my stories are about to start.”  There is a small bubbly television in the corner of the office being propped up by a towering stack of magazines printed in a language Bucky recognizes as Italian.  He recognized every language he’s ever remembered seeing, understands all of them.

Bucky leaves and shuts the door softly behind him.  He could work with a basement apartment, it would be easier to defend or bug in if he has to.  Thick slabs of concrete on all sides didn’t bother him, another thing that probably should have but didn’t.  He was hard to unsettle, Bucky didn’t know yet if that was because he truly wasn’t bothered or if it was all conditioning.  Either way it couldn’t be changed, there was no going backward to who he was before.

Likho jumps to with a short whistle from Bucky, she stays at his heels as he walks back the way he came.  The basement door is down a short flight of stairs flush against the building where the old woman said it would be.  The door is old but solid and the key takes a little wiggling to get it to unlock.  Inside is warm, a lot of space that could be considered sort of a loft if one was feeling generous.  A tiny kitchenette is in the corner and someone left a mattress on the hard concrete of the floor in the middle next to a pillar.  A toilet and a rusty shower are situated in the corner opposite the kitchenette over a drain in the floor and a beige shower curtain hung around it for some measure of privacy.  There’s some exposed wiring here and there along the walls but not low enough to be a concern for Likho and the oven worked.  Everything was grey.  It was the goddamned Hilton.

Bucky does a security check then drops his bag and flops down on the surprisingly clean mattress.  He lays there for hours staring at the ceiling, full of cobwebs.  A wet nose gets shoved into the side of his neck as a reminder to pop open a can of food.  His supplies are dwindling fast.  At least he had running water now but food?  That was going to be a problem.  Money was going to be tight, the funds he got from the few Hydra bases he went to could keep them there for two months tops and that was without anything to eat.  The damned dog ate more than he did.  Likho eats like she’s judging him about that so he scrapes around his duffle for a protein bar.  Bucky eats still without tasting despite chewing what was essentially nutritious clay he feels like something has shifted, as if he’s been waist-deep in mud and he’s managed to move an inch out.  That inch is…fuck, Bucky doesn’t want to think the word terrifying because he’s not used to the feeling.  He remembers being something close to fearful only once over some insistent words and a look of defeat in a pair of sky-blue eyes.

Sucking in a lungful of air Bucky quenches his impending panic with a practiced cool calm.  He allows his fruitless thoughts to wash over him, past him, through him, until he’s thinking nothing at all except for the tasks at hand.  Dividing up the food for Likho and devouring the bar was quick work so Bucky sets to making her a pallet to sleep on then cleans guns that don’t really need cleaning and sets to hide what he can in the apartment.  The rifle he reassembles and lies out on the short kitchen counter.  Even though he’s tired he starts to mend his tac gear.  Blood was relatively easy to get off leather, especially when treated with that exact problem in mind and black didn’t show red very well anyway.

The first scent in his “new” apartment other than dust and stone is the sharp scent of coppery blood.  It’s familiar.  Soothing in a grotesque way.  Likho seems used to the smell as well and Bucky tries not to go to sleep angry that night.  He stays angry but it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t sleep anyway.  He can’t.  New environments never fazed him, being underground didn’t bother him either, neither did quiet or the faint hunger gnawing at him.  He just couldn’t sleep and can’t say why.  There’s an ache inside him and it almost feels like…how he remembers being human maybe felt.  Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between memory and how he knows something _should_ be.  Just like with the nightmares. 

Hydra had sent him on undercover missions where he had to take on the persona of someone else.  He could fake emotions flawlessly, if it was within mission parameters he could do anything.  As hard has it could be to decipher memory from what he knows he should be feeling it’s even harder to know whether or not he was just faking it all.  Bucky reverted back to programming more than once since he’s been “out”, his training liked to show itself in unexpected and unpleasant ways. He’s seventy percent sure he’s not fabricating anything by accident.  Listlessness was such a new thing to him, all his tightly bound control rolled out across the spaces he inhabited and slipped through his grasp.  He stays motionless all night but he doesn’t sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
